With the exception of Genesis, I have actually been very happy with the cards you are suggesting cutting. Genesis has not been great for me either, but it's not terrible by any means.
I've been very happy with Crippling Fatigue. I've killed a few Meddling Mages in my day.
I've Pull from Eternity'd my Hermit Druid that got Swords to Plowshared. Well worth it, IMO.
Tidehollow Sculler has been pretty fantastic for me, I've never run into issues with mana. Castigate is also bonkers.
^^ Just my observations. I'm running a list that is +/- 3 cards different from yours.
Hermit Druid ABSOLUTELY needs to be banned. Complete agreement. The things it does to the metagame is not healthy.
Has anyone attempted doing a complete translation of the deck to a multiplayer environment? Yes, I realize it will draw hate, but I was one of the more "casual" (in that I strongly opposed deck building that encouraged what was basically multiplayer solitaire through its infinite combos and its lockouts in our playgroup) guys in our group when the competitive players decided to sanction the playgroup, charge a fee every week to play, and award prize money to the winners, so I feel pretty justified in turning to this deck. Having to pay money to get myself killed by a hive minded pact on turn 5 is not my idea of fun. My strategy is now to attempt to dominate the table so throughly and repeatedly that the group will, perhaps, reconsider its stance on what our EDH night should be.
To get back to the idea of porting the deck to multiplayer, obviously some cards just won't work. I read the primer in the OP and it seems like cards like Cabal Therapy, meant to make sure we're safe from 1 opponent, are pretty useless. Similarly, the back up plan of Nicol Bolas isn't that effective against 3 - 4 other players either. Fortunately, we do gain a few advantages in going to multiplayer. The ban list my group uses is the official one, so a card like Sol Ring is perfectly fine here. Dunno if it helps any, but at least there are some more options to consider.
As far as my meta goes, there are a few really casual guys, but most are cutthroat combo/control players. None of their decks are as fast or as consistent as this thing is, in duels at least, but they can definitely combo off a few turns later if I haven't. I'm afraid the casual guys are just going to get caught in the crossfire and probably bailout at some point as I can't imagine they will enjoy paying money to just get killed before doing anything any more than I do, but that's probably going to happen regardless of what I build.
Since you're testing, do you have a different list you could share ?
I follow your tests with Sygg on the other thread, which one of this two decks would you think is the best in your meta ?
edit : I'm really looking for a deck that is consistant against my meta (Rafiq-control, Doran, Thrun, MBC, but rarely monoU or UB)
I've played sygg for about a year now and i've been fooling around with scion lately. From my experience, Sygg dominates blue control strategies while Scion dominates creature based strategies. It looks like your meta leans towards creatures so I would recommend Scion.
I am possibly overlooking something, but would the Mimeoplasm, Lord of Extinction and Triskelion prove a viable alternative for this deck's core combo? It would give us access to Goryo's Vengeance for the Mimeoplasm, which I think would be a good thing.
Cons
-Necrotic Ooze is a better card drawn than Mimeoplasm
-Devoted Druid is really easy to cast, and marginally useful, if drawn
-Cannot be assembled by Buried Alive / Survival of the Fittest
The inability to be assembled by Buried Alive etc is really a knock against the Mimeoplasm. Still a close contender tho!
Phantasmal Image strikes me as the only card from m12 that is of the power level of this deck. Even so I am not sure there is room.
Balance is hard to replace, we don't really care about killing creatures, we only really ran Balance because it was so under costed and it could buy you a lot of time. I don't think there is a card to fill that role, as such I would just replace it with more enablers/protection.
Hi,
first of all, i m new to this forum but i ve been playing magic for about 10 years. Just casual play. Last year our playgroup startet to play EDH. Since we have players who startet magic just a few years ago, we set up our own EDH rules, allowing ONLY cards with the new magic frame to be in the deck (starting with mirrodin, promos are allowed).
So i didn't really care about the EDH deck discussion here, but a friend told me about the hermid druid combo, because the druid has a new frame(judge promo). Obviously we can't build the combo in our format, cus we can't play caller of claws. but i had an idea for another nice win-move. The deck puts all cards in your graveyard, so u just need to dread return Laboratory Maniac, and cast a draw-spell (e.g. deep analysis, Gitaxian Probe). with the Maniac you don't have to run caller,anger,cryptchampion anymore.what do you think?
You know, you could still play Hermit Druid; just replace the Caller of the Claw combo with an arbitrary Necrotic Ooze combo and you're set. Many will argue that Necrotic Ooze is superior, anyway.
Still, Laboratory Maniac is a sweet idea. You would probably have to rework the deck to include more cantrip action, but it seems doable. Because you would need to have a draw effect in hand/on board, you end up trading consistency for useful deck slots, but it might actually work out very well.
If you really wanted to use Laboratory Maniac you could instead run Reveillark and Hapless Researcher. You Dread Return Reveillark, flashback Cabal Therapy to sacrifice it, getting back Maniac and Researcher. Then you sacrifice the Researcher and win.
Lab Maniac is an incredible secondary win con for the deck. No need to add Reivelark/Hapless Researcher imo.
The times you would Dread Return Lab Maniac is when Ooze is exiled, you bring this guy out. If they exile Dread Return then you flash back Krosan Reclaimation (replace with the new Innistrad card Memory's Journey btw) targetting a reanimation type effect.
Deck is pretty good but is a bit soft to certain dedicated control decks that interfere with your game plan. Having the Cephalid Illusionist/Lightning Greeves is a must imo because sometimes the Hermit Druid primary combo gets messed with too much.
Great deck overall, my choice for 1on1 commander (not the joke French ban list though LOL).
Miscalcul8edRisk has a version of the Mimeoplasm deck here.
To win off of Ooze you need to use either Thornling or Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon to give Ooze haste. Quillspike and Devoted Druid make for infinite green mana and an infinitely large Ooze that you can use Thornling to give trample to. Another option is Elvish Aberration and Pili-Pala, which gives you infinite mana of any color. A friend of mine plays the deck locally and uses Oona, Queen of the Fae to exile everyone's libraries.
In either case, Mimeoplasm is generally the plan B win, and there's so many different ways to enable that so I won't bother listing them.
Skeleton is there more for abusing stuff like 'Clamp in the list, or to have an early body to drop a turn or two before going off.
I also think Aberration/Pili-Pala/Oona is the proper way to go at this point, since it nets you any color mana over Druid/Quillspike, allowing you to use Oona without an untapped black/blue mana source.
I don't know if Miscalcul8edRisk tested it or not, but it seems like Phantasmal Image should be given a shot. At worst it's a 2 mana removal spell for their general with the possibility to copy utility creatures.
I also think Aberration/Pili-Pala/Oona is the proper way to go at this point, since it nets you any color mana over Druid/Quillspike, allowing you to use Oona without an untapped black/blue mana source.
Just want to point out that Druid/Quillspike generates infinite mana of any colour by utilizing Devoted Druid/Birds of Paradise once Necrotic Oozes toughness is arbitrarily large.
Miscalcul8edRisk has a version of the Mimeoplasm deck here.
To win off of Ooze you need to use either Thornling or Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon to give Ooze haste. Quillspike and Devoted Druid make for infinite green mana and an infinitely large Ooze that you can use Thornling to give trample to. Another option is Elvish Aberration and Pili-Pala, which gives you infinite mana of any color. A friend of mine plays the deck locally and uses Oona, Queen of the Fae to exile everyone's libraries.
In either case, Mimeoplasm is generally the plan B win, and there's so many different ways to enable that so I won't bother listing them.
Thanks for the list. Is your friend able to pull off the combo regularly?
I was interested in the combo primarily for a multiplayer setting, but I think that in a competitive meta the combo is simply too fragile to survive three turns until you untap. If everyone at the table knows that you win if you activate Hermit Druid then it can be pretty difficult to get that plan to stick. The Mimeoplasm Plan B is pretty shaky so you don't really have much game if your Hermit Druid eats a Swords. You could possibly build the deck with more control elements to ensure that Druid sticks, but at that point you are diluting the deck so much that you should probably just play a different and better combo deck.
Just want to point out that Druid/Quillspike generates infinite mana of any colour by utilizing Devoted Druid/Birds of Paradise once Necrotic Oozes toughness is arbitrarily large.
Good point, although it is an extra cog required in case you need to use alternate ways to stick things in the yard, which could end up being relevant.
Thanks for the list. Is your friend able to pull off the combo regularly?
He definitely wins his share of games with it. His list isn't as tuned for a competitive meta as it could be though, it's got more of a controllish shell going on for the first couple of turns. I'll see if I can get the deck list from him.
Touche, the combo being able to be assembled by Buried Alive and Survival of the Fittest was extremely relevant several times during the tournament when I ran Hermit Druid combo, making up for the resiliency that the Druid lacks.
That was the amazing part about that deck, Hermit Druid makes you fast and consistent. Shallow Grave/Buried Alive/Survival of the Fittest (and now Postmortem Lunge) make you resilient.
Necrotic Ooze is completely immune to removal. Lab Maniac is the most obvious target ever conceived.
He sounds like a waste of space to me.
LOL. Sounds like you haven't done play testing against any hate. Very reasonable scenario:
1) You mill your entire library (maybe you had to use Cephalid Illusionist + Lightning Greeves because Hermit Druid got repeatedly answered)
2) As a response to your Dread Return they RFG your Necrotic Ooze.
Or they have a Pithing Needle/Phyrexian Revoker naming Necrotic Ooze.
Or the opponent played Sadistic Sacrament (ya LOL it's a "noob" card in real formats like Legacy but its not "LOL" against a combo EDH deck) and took away parts of your GY containing combo pieces (could be the creatures that Ooze needs abilities from)
Or they have some strange redundant set of effects like Leyline of Sanctity + Rune Halo naming Necrotic Ooze (more redundant effects than you have Ray of Revelation for)
Labratory Maniac gives outs to these situations. He's not a "waste of space" because he uses up 1 card slot out of 100. No other back up win con fits this nicely into the deck for 1 card slot.
One of the main reasons why ooze is so good and should never be cut, is that once dread return resolves, you literally cannot lose the game. You win. Automatically. Infinite stacked damage before the opponent is even allowed to respond.
With this worldgorger/sun titan crap, on the other hand, a single swords to plowshares in response and you lost.
Ooze also combos with itself. Resolve survival of the fittest, win the game next turn. You dont need to actually combo out with the druid to win with ooze, but that lengthy and useless combo you listed needs a druid activation. You wont always get druid.
Yours requires additional slots beyond that, even accepting that some of the cards are part of the deck's core anyways, devoting more slots to the combo also increases the chances of you drawing one of the pieces and needing a turn to discard it before you can combo out.
Sun Titan
Worldgorger
Necromancy
Eternal Witness
Silence
Thirst for Knowledge
I just dont see why this is "better" than ooze.
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Tantarus: It didn't make the gaka greifer level, so it should be fine
Ooze is definitely superior to WGD for the reasons Gaka listed. One area Worldgorger Dragon does benefit is the fact that Scion puts it into the yard for you for abuse, which might be relevant if you attempted to adapt this deck for the French ban list (where you'd be losing Hermit Druid). You'd probably want a more controllish shell if you wanted to go that route though.
One of the main reasons why ooze is so good and should never be cut, is that once dread return resolves, you literally cannot lose the game. You win. Automatically. Infinite stacked damage before the opponent is even allowed to respond.
With this worldgorger/sun titan crap, on the other hand, a single swords to plowshares in response and you lost.
Ooze also combos with itself. Resolve survival of the fittest, win the game next turn. You dont need to actually combo out with the druid to win with ooze, but that lengthy and useless combo you listed needs a druid activation. You wont always get druid.
Yours requires additional slots beyond that, even accepting that some of the cards are part of the deck's core anyways, devoting more slots to the combo also increases the chances of you drawing one of the pieces and needing a turn to discard it before you can combo out.
Sun Titan
Worldgorger
Necromancy
Eternal Witness
Silence
Thirst for Knowledge
I just dont see why this is "better" than ooze.
Well, it's not really fair to count Eternal Witness, Silence or Thirst of Knowledge here as combo slots. Those are just examples of cards that may potentially already be played. A single Cephalid Colosseum just as easily wins after shuffling back a Silence and going for the deck kill if you really want to be minimalist. As does Barbarian Ring, or any other permanent based kill card.
Infinite stacked damage before priority is passed is overrated. If your opponent had the out to worldgorger, they would have played it on hermit druid before the trigger, and it's not like you don't already have a considerable protection package.
Survival of the fittest is just about the only non-druid way to combo off of necrotic ooze, and that has a considerable mana investment. Titan and Dragon however are relavent on their own, which is something that can't be said for the ooze package.
"ROFLMAOPIMPWTIME. Sounds like you haven't done play testing against any hate. Very reasonable scenario: your Manic Labrador gets killed"
Wouldn't Sadistic Treatment just take Dread Return, Ooze and Maniac?
Wouldn't I just be able to cast Ray of Revelation on Leyline of Sanctity and then flashback it to get rid of the halo? How are these "more effects than I have Rays for"? And wouldn't I just kill Leyline and Halo with Wickerbough Elder and get rid of Needles/Revokers with Ancient Grudge?
Wouldn't I have Krosan Reclamation + Pull from Eternity to get any exiled cards back?
And how exactly would I actually get a Maniac into play when my Dread Return gets countered upon resolution due to lack of a legal target?
Alright you're really twisting arguments. If they stop your ooze plan and kill your maniac then you just lose. It's still good to have that out.
All of your counters are also assuming near ideal situations where the opponent doesn't counter a single spell or interact with you.
At the end of the day, assuming you and me play the rest of the same 99 cards, what would you add as your 100th card? Some sub par forced in cantrip? Because we're both playing the other 99 best cards. the 100th card is going to be weak. I'm going with Lab Maniac, which can be answered, but gives me a strong alternate win con. This I feel is a better 100th card than some other random garbage like lightning bolt.
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With the exception of Genesis, I have actually been very happy with the cards you are suggesting cutting. Genesis has not been great for me either, but it's not terrible by any means.
I've been very happy with Crippling Fatigue. I've killed a few Meddling Mages in my day.
I've Pull from Eternity'd my Hermit Druid that got Swords to Plowshared. Well worth it, IMO.
Tidehollow Sculler has been pretty fantastic for me, I've never run into issues with mana. Castigate is also bonkers.
^^ Just my observations. I'm running a list that is +/- 3 cards different from yours.
Hermit Druid ABSOLUTELY needs to be banned. Complete agreement. The things it does to the metagame is not healthy.
To get back to the idea of porting the deck to multiplayer, obviously some cards just won't work. I read the primer in the OP and it seems like cards like Cabal Therapy, meant to make sure we're safe from 1 opponent, are pretty useless. Similarly, the back up plan of Nicol Bolas isn't that effective against 3 - 4 other players either. Fortunately, we do gain a few advantages in going to multiplayer. The ban list my group uses is the official one, so a card like Sol Ring is perfectly fine here. Dunno if it helps any, but at least there are some more options to consider.
As far as my meta goes, there are a few really casual guys, but most are cutthroat combo/control players. None of their decks are as fast or as consistent as this thing is, in duels at least, but they can definitely combo off a few turns later if I haven't. I'm afraid the casual guys are just going to get caught in the crossfire and probably bailout at some point as I can't imagine they will enjoy paying money to just get killed before doing anything any more than I do, but that's probably going to happen regardless of what I build.
So, any tips?
I've played sygg for about a year now and i've been fooling around with scion lately. From my experience, Sygg dominates blue control strategies while Scion dominates creature based strategies. It looks like your meta leans towards creatures so I would recommend Scion.
Is it optimal? Lets examine:
Necrotic Ooze + Devoted Druid + Moarselhoarder + Shivan Hellkite (in deck)
Vs
Mimeoplasm + Triskelion + Lord of Extinction
Pros of Mimeoplasm:
-Requires 1 less card in deck
Cons
-Necrotic Ooze is a better card drawn than Mimeoplasm
-Devoted Druid is really easy to cast, and marginally useful, if drawn
-Cannot be assembled by Buried Alive / Survival of the Fittest
The inability to be assembled by Buried Alive etc is really a knock against the Mimeoplasm. Still a close contender tho!
also, my playgroup bans balance, anything i can use to sub it?
Balance is hard to replace, we don't really care about killing creatures, we only really ran Balance because it was so under costed and it could buy you a lot of time. I don't think there is a card to fill that role, as such I would just replace it with more enablers/protection.
You know, you could still play Hermit Druid; just replace the Caller of the Claw combo with an arbitrary Necrotic Ooze combo and you're set. Many will argue that Necrotic Ooze is superior, anyway.
Still, Laboratory Maniac is a sweet idea. You would probably have to rework the deck to include more cantrip action, but it seems doable. Because you would need to have a draw effect in hand/on board, you end up trading consistency for useful deck slots, but it might actually work out very well.
Draft my Mono-Blue Cube!
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The times you would Dread Return Lab Maniac is when Ooze is exiled, you bring this guy out. If they exile Dread Return then you flash back Krosan Reclaimation (replace with the new Innistrad card Memory's Journey btw) targetting a reanimation type effect.
Deck is pretty good but is a bit soft to certain dedicated control decks that interfere with your game plan. Having the Cephalid Illusionist/Lightning Greeves is a must imo because sometimes the Hermit Druid primary combo gets messed with too much.
Great deck overall, my choice for 1on1 commander (not the joke French ban list though LOL).
To win off of Ooze you need to use either Thornling or Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon to give Ooze haste. Quillspike and Devoted Druid make for infinite green mana and an infinitely large Ooze that you can use Thornling to give trample to. Another option is Elvish Aberration and Pili-Pala, which gives you infinite mana of any color. A friend of mine plays the deck locally and uses Oona, Queen of the Fae to exile everyone's libraries.
In either case, Mimeoplasm is generally the plan B win, and there's so many different ways to enable that so I won't bother listing them.
I also think Aberration/Pili-Pala/Oona is the proper way to go at this point, since it nets you any color mana over Druid/Quillspike, allowing you to use Oona without an untapped black/blue mana source.
I don't know if Miscalcul8edRisk tested it or not, but it seems like Phantasmal Image should be given a shot. At worst it's a 2 mana removal spell for their general with the possibility to copy utility creatures.
Just want to point out that Druid/Quillspike generates infinite mana of any colour by utilizing Devoted Druid/Birds of Paradise once Necrotic Oozes toughness is arbitrarily large.
Thanks for the list. Is your friend able to pull off the combo regularly?
I was interested in the combo primarily for a multiplayer setting, but I think that in a competitive meta the combo is simply too fragile to survive three turns until you untap. If everyone at the table knows that you win if you activate Hermit Druid then it can be pretty difficult to get that plan to stick. The Mimeoplasm Plan B is pretty shaky so you don't really have much game if your Hermit Druid eats a Swords. You could possibly build the deck with more control elements to ensure that Druid sticks, but at that point you are diluting the deck so much that you should probably just play a different and better combo deck.
Good point, although it is an extra cog required in case you need to use alternate ways to stick things in the yard, which could end up being relevant.
He definitely wins his share of games with it. His list isn't as tuned for a competitive meta as it could be though, it's got more of a controllish shell going on for the first couple of turns. I'll see if I can get the deck list from him.
That was the amazing part about that deck, Hermit Druid makes you fast and consistent. Shallow Grave/Buried Alive/Survival of the Fittest (and now Postmortem Lunge) make you resilient.
There are so many ways to kill with Sun Titan/Worldgorger it's not even funny. The best outlets are those that have utility outside of the combo -- Barbarian Ring, Eternal Witness, Lightning Bolt etc.
LOL. Sounds like you haven't done play testing against any hate. Very reasonable scenario:
1) You mill your entire library (maybe you had to use Cephalid Illusionist + Lightning Greeves because Hermit Druid got repeatedly answered)
2) As a response to your Dread Return they RFG your Necrotic Ooze.
Or they have a Pithing Needle/Phyrexian Revoker naming Necrotic Ooze.
Or the opponent played Sadistic Sacrament (ya LOL it's a "noob" card in real formats like Legacy but its not "LOL" against a combo EDH deck) and took away parts of your GY containing combo pieces (could be the creatures that Ooze needs abilities from)
Or they have some strange redundant set of effects like Leyline of Sanctity + Rune Halo naming Necrotic Ooze (more redundant effects than you have Ray of Revelation for)
Labratory Maniac gives outs to these situations. He's not a "waste of space" because he uses up 1 card slot out of 100. No other back up win con fits this nicely into the deck for 1 card slot.
Sun Titan + Worldgorger Dragon is tots the way to go
Hermit Druid -> Dread Return Sun Titan -> Necromancy Worldgorger Dragon -> Sun Titan graveyard, mill out with Eternal Witness + Silence + Thirst For Knowledge. Aside from the freed slots, the titan/dragon package has it's own combo worth outside of druid, should you ship them to the yard and recur.
With this worldgorger/sun titan crap, on the other hand, a single swords to plowshares in response and you lost.
Ooze also combos with itself. Resolve survival of the fittest, win the game next turn. You dont need to actually combo out with the druid to win with ooze, but that lengthy and useless combo you listed needs a druid activation. You wont always get druid.
As for slots, ooze combo needs exactly four -
Necrotic Ooze
Devoted Druid
Morselhoarder
Shivan Hellkite
Yours requires additional slots beyond that, even accepting that some of the cards are part of the deck's core anyways, devoting more slots to the combo also increases the chances of you drawing one of the pieces and needing a turn to discard it before you can combo out.
Sun Titan
Worldgorger
Necromancy
Eternal Witness
Silence
Thirst for Knowledge
I just dont see why this is "better" than ooze.
EDH:
RNorin the WaryR <-Link! (Primer - Mono Red Control)
GUEdric, Spymaster of TrestUG <- Link! (Mini-Primer - Dredge)
Duel Commander:
WUGeist of Saint TraftUW <- Link! (Aggro-Control)
BGSkullbriar, the Walking GraveGB <- Link! (Aggro)
BUGDamia, Sage of StoneGUB <- Link! (Extinction Control)
Church of the Wary
Well, it's not really fair to count Eternal Witness, Silence or Thirst of Knowledge here as combo slots. Those are just examples of cards that may potentially already be played. A single Cephalid Colosseum just as easily wins after shuffling back a Silence and going for the deck kill if you really want to be minimalist. As does Barbarian Ring, or any other permanent based kill card.
Infinite stacked damage before priority is passed is overrated. If your opponent had the out to worldgorger, they would have played it on hermit druid before the trigger, and it's not like you don't already have a considerable protection package.
Survival of the fittest is just about the only non-druid way to combo off of necrotic ooze, and that has a considerable mana investment. Titan and Dragon however are relavent on their own, which is something that can't be said for the ooze package.
Alright you're really twisting arguments. If they stop your ooze plan and kill your maniac then you just lose. It's still good to have that out.
All of your counters are also assuming near ideal situations where the opponent doesn't counter a single spell or interact with you.
At the end of the day, assuming you and me play the rest of the same 99 cards, what would you add as your 100th card? Some sub par forced in cantrip? Because we're both playing the other 99 best cards. the 100th card is going to be weak. I'm going with Lab Maniac, which can be answered, but gives me a strong alternate win con. This I feel is a better 100th card than some other random garbage like lightning bolt.